(audio) We meet Anna the twin sister of Gabry. She left her sister behind in the last book and ran to safety with Eltias. She is living in the Dark city, alone waiting for Eltias to return from hunting for her sister, the one she left over ten years ago. She has been racked with guilt everyday over the horrible choice she had to make to survive. She was left scared and self loathing from the event. Eltias brings her a brief of happiness only to have that ripped from her. With all that she has been through she still survives and hopes. Then when you think it can get no worse, hold on it does...Garby is fresh and pretty, she smiles. Anna is scarred, dark and emotionally crippled by her past. Catcher, an adorable character, is immune to the virus and gives everything to save his friends. He and Anna develop a friendship while trying to survive the horde. They travel a difficult road, they don't dare cross. Eltias, he is gullible, he believed in the wrong sort of people, blinding himself to the truth. There are some very dark and nasty humans side characters, pure evil.I really loved this book, it was non-stop reading joy. I loved the ending for the series, but I would really love one more follow up novel ? I wanted to smack the stupid innocence off Gabry a few times, her character seemed so out of place for the world around her. Too shinny and happy....grrrr, you are surrounded by badness girl get hardened up ! I cheered for the rest of the group and was thrilled with Anna and Catchers ending. ( )

I thought the first book, The Forest of Hands and Teeth was not bad (and had what may well be the best title of any zombie story ever), but found the second book, The Dead-Tossed Waves, underwhelming. When I finished that one, I thought, y'know, if I didn't already have the third book on my to-read shelves, I don't think I'd bother with it. But I did have it, so I did finish out the trilogy and, well... My instinct when I finished book two was correct. Because this one mostly just annoyed me.

Which is a shame, because I do like the concept and the setting, and there are some very cool little worldbuilding touches that feel like they belong in a much better book. But ye gods, did I get sick of the overwrought, unconvincing, melodramatic teen romance, and the overwrought, unconvincing, melodramatic teen angst. And, yes, I know, these books are aimed at teenagers, so what did I expect? But I guarantee you, I'd have been rolling my eyes at it just as hard, or possibly harder, back when I was a teenager.

Something about the first-person narration irritates me, too. The main character tells us repeatedly all about what she is thinking and feeling and seeing, but she does it in a way that somehow feels entirely too abstracted, and events and emotions that should feel immediate and vivid seem distant and unengaging instead, to the extent that the action often only became at all interesting if I made an effort to picture it as a movie, rather than trying to find any satisfaction in looking out through the character's eyes.

And then there are the flat, cartoonishy evil bad guys...

Yeah. I don't know if there will be more in this series or not, but either way, I'm done. ( )

I'm glad the main character for each of these books in the trilogy is different. Lately YA trilogies just seem to falter as the story wears on through the 2nd and 3rd books. I loved Forest of Hands and Feet, which I described to bookstore customers as a "zombie love story without a lot of blood and gore." I hand sold a lot of the first book as an antidote to the Twilight series. I was less thrilled by the second book and the third ties up loose ends nicely while still leaving some room for the reader's own imagination. ( )

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Book description

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters. Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

Haiku summary

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▾Library descriptions

Alone and listening to the moaning of the Dark City dying around her, Annah wants to find her way back home, to her sister and family and their village in the Forest of Hands and Teeth.